The Silent Shepherd: The Care, Comfort, and Correction of the Holy Spirit
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The role of the Holy Spirit in a Christian's life is often misunderstood. Some believers focus solely on spiritual gifts, some emphasize the practical over the spiritual, and others avoid the subject altogether. Yet in spite of the apparent confusion, the truth is surprisingly simple: God's Spirit is a vital part of our relationship with Him.
The Silent Shepherd offers a balanced, scripturally sound look at the personality, works, and deity of the Holy Spirit. Drawing from over 40 years in ministry, pastor and author John MacArthur, Jr. clears away misconceptions, offers fresh insights, and shares how God's Spirit can guide, lead, and empower every believer. This revised and updated edition includes a guide for both personal and group study and features discovery questions, suggestions for prayer, and activities, all designed to connect life-changing truths with everyday living.
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The Silent Shepherd - John MacArthur Jr.
THE SILENT SHEPHERD
Published by David C Cook
4050 Lee Vance View
Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.
David C Cook Distribution Canada
55 Woodslee Avenue, Paris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5
David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications
Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England
The graphic circle C logo is a registered trademark of David C Cook.
All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,
no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form
without written permission from the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version of the Bible. (Public Domain); NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc™. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com; and NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The author has added italics to Scripture quotations for emphasis.
LCCN 2011942709
ISBN 978-0-7814-0673-4
eISBN 978-1-4347-0485-6
© 1996, 2012 John MacArthur
First edition published by Victor Books in 1996
© John MacArthur, ISBN 1-56476-579-2.
The Team: Alex Field, Amy Konyndyk, Jack Campbell, Karen Athen
Cover Design: Nick Lee
Cover Photo: Shutterstock
Second Edition 2012
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. The Silent Shepherd: A Primer
2. The Spirit in the Old Testament
3. The Spirit of Life: The New Covenant
4. The Spirit of Transformation and Hope
5. The Promised Spirit: A Complete Arrival
6. The Silent Shepherd at Work for Us
7. A Scriptural Path for the Spiritual Walk
8. Realizing Our Full Potential—in the Spirit
Discussion Guide
INTRODUCTION
Two errors regarding the doctrine of the Holy Spirit have clouded the contemporary church’s understanding of His person and ministry. On the one hand, the charismatic movement is obsessed with the Holy Spirit, tending to focus all doctrine and worship on Him exclusively. The danger with an undue stress on the gifts and leading of the Holy Spirit is that personal experience is often elevated over the objective truth of Scripture. On the other hand, many non-charismatics tend to ignore the Holy Spirit altogether. Perhaps weary of the controversy, confusion, and subjectivity of the charismatic movement, too many have responded by going to the opposite extreme. They simply avoid the Holy Spirit in their teaching and study. On top of that, popular evangelicalism as a whole has shifted in recent generations from God-centered ministry to a man-centered approach. Pragmatism rules. The churches are run as businesses. The gospel is often viewed as a product for marketing. Spiritual problems are dealt with by psychological means. In short, man-centered ministry virtually operates as if the Holy Spirit were unnecessary.
Both errors are spiritually debilitating. If we misunderstand the role of the Holy Spirit, or if we ignore the Spirit altogether, how can we comprehend what it is to walk in the Spirit?
Paul chided the Galatians for their lack of dependence on the Holy Spirit: Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
(Gal. 3:3). As that verse suggests, the Holy Spirit’s role is crucial in bringing us to salvation, in empowering us to live our lives in Christ, and in bringing us to ultimate perfection in glory. In other words, the Spirit’s work is essential throughout the entire scope of the Christian’s experience. Every aspect of Christian living is governed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We can ill afford either to misconstrue or ignore His role. To do so is to short-circuit our sanctification. That is exactly what happens when believers turn to legalism, charismatic mysticism, and psychology, as they have today.
Concerning the Holy Spirit’s vital position in the life of the church, Charles Ryrie wrote the following paragraph, which is as applicable now as it was in the 1960s:
The solution to the problems of the church today is to solve the individual Christian’s problems, and the solution to those problems is a Person—the Holy Spirit. He is the antidote for every error, the power for every weakness, the victory for every defeat, and the answer for every need. And He is available to every believer, for He lives in his heart and life. The answer and the power have already been given us in the indwelling Holy Spirit.¹
Unfortunately, such realities have not been fully taken to heart by twenty-first-century Christians. While believers think of Christ as the Good Shepherd (John 10), they rarely see the Holy Spirit as fulfilling a shepherding role. But 1 John 3:24 says, The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
The apostle is speaking of Christ’s indwelling, which is made known to us by the Holy Spirit (John 14:17–20). It is therefore reasonable to see the Spirit working with Christ in shepherding us—ever present to encourage us, guide us, enlighten us in all spiritual truth, and to empower us for every good work (John 14:16, 26–27; 16:13). Hence, I have titled this book The Silent Shepherd, which implies the quiet, behind-the-scenes, but nevertheless present ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Too many Christians are searching futilely for answers to needless questions. They flock to seminars, devour popular Christian books, visit counselors, seek the latest fad for successful Christian living, or pursue the current ecstatic experience to discover the secret
of abundant life in Christ. But I contend that the key to such living is not a secret. Nor is it a mystery. Scripture contains all the information we will ever need for living fruitful, successful lives. Our problem is not a lack of information, nor a deficiency in spiritual experience. Our problem is that we do not rely sufficiently on the ministry of the Spirit and allow Him to apply the truth with power in our lives. All the seminars and counselors and deeper-life schemes can actually turn out to be counterproductive, since a false means of sanctification is an impotent counterfeit.
I trust that a new look at those scriptural truths will encourage us to apply the Holy Spirit’s resources. We will begin with a review of the basic doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 1 covers what the Bible teaches about the personality, deity, and works of the Holy Spirit. It also examines the various ways the Holy Spirit is depicted in Scripture.
Another aspect of the Holy Spirit’s ministry that is in great need of clarification is His role during the Old Testament period. Over the centuries Christians have tended to give most of their attention to the Spirit in the New Testament. As a result, the church has not always had a good grasp on the significance of the Spirit’s role in old covenant people and events. In chapter 2 we will indicate that the Holy Spirit operated in five categories during Old Testament times: in creation, in the empowerment of individuals, in the revelation of God’s Word, in the regeneration of individuals, and in the sanctification of believers. The Spirit’s activity in the Old Testament provides the foundation for understanding His enhanced role under the new covenant. Such an understanding requires insight into the superiorities of the new covenant itself, which are discussed in chapters 3 and 4.
The fullness of the Holy Spirit in the greater excellence of the new covenant is further underscored by Jesus’ promise to His disciples at the very end of His earthly ministry, just prior to His ascension:
Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, Which,
He said, you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
(Acts 1:4–5)
This was the final aspect of the promise Jesus had given earlier to His disciples in the upper room. At that time He pledged, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you
(John 14:16–17).
Of course, Jesus’ promise in Acts 1:4–5 was gloriously fulfilled in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Since this crucial event in the history of the church is vital for us to understand, our focus in chapter 5 will be an analysis of Spirit baptism. This analysis, I trust, will also give us a clear perspective, in view of all the erroneous teaching on the subject, on the place of Spirit baptism within the body of Christ.
In the final chapters I will focus on the joys we can derive from living the Christian life with a full realization of the Holy Spirit’s presence within us. I will devote some space to clarifying a common misperception regarding our relationship to the Holy Spirit. Many contemporary evangelicals have adopted the notion that being filled with the Spirit is something extraordinary, not attainable by most average believers. We will see, however, that all Christians can be continuously filled with the Holy Spirit and are commanded to be so.
The Christian life begins and continues by the power of the Holy Spirit, whom God has graciously sent first to awaken us to our need for salvation, then to give us a new birth, and finally to dwell within us to eventually present us flawless when Christ returns. This will be the theme of this book’s final chapters. I trust it will become the underlying theme for the entire book, in keeping with the unchanging truth, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts
(Zech. 4:6).
Notes
1 Charles C. Ryrie, The Holy Spirit (Chicago: Moody, 1965), 9.
1
THE SILENT SHEPHERD: A PRIMER
When a Christian recites the simple affirmation from the Apostles’ Creed, I believe in the Holy Ghost,
he or she is agreeing (at least outwardly) with one of the great, fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. But as with all the essential doctrinal truths of the Bible, it is not enough simply to agree intellectually with a bare-bones statement. God always wants His children to embrace the truth wholeheartedly, with a clear mental comprehension and a fervent, heartfelt commitment to apply the truth to daily living.
Many older works on the Holy Spirit, while excellent resource books, are inadequate when it comes to applying the truths of the doctrine to Christian growth. On the other hand, many of the popular contemporary books on the Holy Spirit are not doctrinal at all. They assume readers have a foundational knowledge about the Spirit and deal exclusively with experiential aspects of living in the Spirit.
There also is another large block of contemporary material on the Holy Spirit from a charismatic perspective, including its unscriptural excesses, imbalances, and wrong presuppositions.
In this book I hope to provide you with a balanced presentation by blending an appropriate doctrinal foundation in this chapter with scriptural discussions in subsequent chapters to point you toward personal application of the Holy Spirit’s resources. The following summarizes well my burden for what this book would convey:
Because God in Christ has initiated the Messianic Age with its outpouring of the Spirit, man’s relationship to God has been forever changed. No longer can the Law be used as a means of exclusion and oppression of the disenfranchised: Jesus has preached the messianic Gospel of release to the captive, sight to the blind, and good news to the poor; the new law of life has been written on the hearts of men. Thus we must abhor any new legalism which uses the Scripture to exclude and oppress—this is to turn the good news of Christ into the letter that kills.
We must, rather, recognize the God-breathed
character of Scripture, and the Spirit that makes alive.
Only so will the Scripture be profitable. Conversely, the Spirit cannot be claimed as the mark of an elite, as that which distinguishes and divides. The Gospel of Jesus Christ includes the message that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh. All abuses of Scripture and the Spirit must hear God’s message: The promise is to those who are near, and to those who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.
¹
It is not my purpose for this to be merely another theology handbook about the Holy Spirit. Yet it is important to focus first on elements of the basic doctrine to lay a foundation for our discussions in the remainder of the book.
Personality of the Spirit
The Holy Spirit is a person. He is not a mystical force or metaphysical influence. He is a divine person—the third person of the Trinity—and acknowledging that fact is absolutely essential to an orthodox understanding of who He is.
Personhood has personality traits, and personality includes intellect, emotions, and will. And these attributes are characteristic of the Holy Spirit.